Police have blamed a beaver for shutting down a section of Switzerland's A1 motorway, the major route connecting eastern and western parts of the country.

A lane of the motorway was blocked for most of the day in the Courgevaux area of the canton of Fribourg on Monday because of a landslide caused by the busy rodent, cantonal police said on Tuesday.

Several tonnes of earth and rock covered the roadway early in the morning and it took a crew with earth-moving equipment until the evening to clear it up, police said.

The beaver had blocked a stream running parallel to the motorway.

Pressure from the water burst a retaining wall, triggering the landslide, police said.

There was no information on what happened to the beaver.